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It’s smooth. It’s touch-sensitive. And I play with it all day long. My iPhone is my best friend.
Not only does the iPhone have the ability to make calls, take photos and videos and text message like other phones, but the applications for the iPhone make it far superior to any other touch-screen model.
In case you weren’t convinced by the obnoxious “there’s an app for that” Apple commercials where some guy manages to book a reservation for sushi and tickets to a movie, all while on the phone with a friend, there actually is an application for just about anything.
Although I have yet to find the app that brings Taco Bell to my doorstep, I can however, order Chipotle with its own application. You create a new order, place anything on the menu in your “bag,” then go to the specified store and simply pay to pick up your food. When my credit card gets denied, I can tap on my Wells Fargo application and find out where my money is.
Once I am home watching football and devouring my Chiptole, I can check the stats of my fantasy football team with the Yahoo Fantasy Football ’09 app. I can also make trades and view the stats of my friends’ teams just as I could online. Unfortunately, it cannot change the fact that my team, the “Multiple Scorgasms,” is still in last place.
When I have 20 minutes or so to commit to a game, I use my “The Price Is Right” app. It is all the fun of the original game without Bob Barker or Drew Carey, which is a win-win situation for me. Word games are a ton of fun, as well.
“Words With Friends” is essentially a live game of Scrabble you can play with friends who also have the application. The same concept applies to “Scramble 2,” where you are given a square matrix of jumbled letters — either four-by-four or five-by-five — and you have to find as many words as you can. I’m terrible at it, but it’s fun.
Music apps are one of my many vices. “Concerts” is a great way to see a list of events within a 50-mile radius of where I am. You can also check out “Pandora” which is good for discovering new music. I have yet to change my station from “Joshua Radin Radio.”
One of the most amazing apps I have is called “Concert Vault.” With it, I can access audio from concerts such as James Taylor at the Fillmore East in 1971, or Stevie Ray Vaughan at the Spectrum Montreal in 1984. The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and many others are also featured on the app.
There are countless other applications that have helped me get through class periods and to ignore awkward family occasions. They help me tune out distractions and focus on something else. Cell phones have come a long way and are much more than a light to guide us in the dark — even though that is exactly what my “Zippo” app does.
Tyler Harbaugh can be reached at
tharbaugh@mail.csuchico.edu
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